A Vision for Life: Part I

As a young boy and teenager, I grew up in the United Church of Canada. Looking back to those early days seems rather strange from the vantage point of my understanding of church today. So much has changed, and so much of what I see the church is meant to be is different from what I experienced as a teenager. I remember my first encounter with "something different" came just after my conversion in 1972. I had heard about a youth meeting in the north part of Toronto called "Reach Out." It was led by a man named Bart Wiles and was simply a large group of young people who met together in a Lutheran Church building on Saturday nights for a praise gathering and ministry from the Word of God. My first experience with this group was absolutely life-changing - especially for a United Church boy like me.

The thing I remember most about this group was how passionate the young people were in their relationship with Jesus Christ. My upbringing had encouraged quietness, reserve, and a certain amount of mysticism. While this group of people was expressive - I mean really expressive! For the first time I saw people raising their hands in worship. I saw people dancing, and I heard people speaking in strange languages that I had never heard before. All of this had a profound impact on my life. Of course, trying to take all this back to the little United Church in which I had been raised proved to be a disaster. I will never forget our 65 year-old "Youth Leader" pointing his bony finger at me and saying, "We'll have none of that in this church!" Well, as you can imagine, this meant my days in the United Church were coming to an end, for more and more I wanted to be with people who shared a passion for Christ as I did.

In 1974, my family and I moved to Brampton, Ontario where I met a whole new group of people who were associated with what had come to be called the "Charismatic Renewal." This renewal had touched many denominational churches with a belief in the present reality of the gifts of the Spirit as listed in 1 Corinthians 12 and with the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It was while living in Brampton that I too was baptized in the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues. It was a tremendous blessing and also it provided me with a doorway to seeing God's plan for His church differently than how I had been raised. Part of this happened through two publications that were prevalent in Charismatic circles at the time: New Wine magazine from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Restoration magazine from the United Kingdom. Both of these magazines taught that God was working to "restore" to His church those truths that had either been lost or neglected throughout the centuries of church history. In all of this, I felt swept up in a great vision to see the church become what God has always wanted it to be. It is a vision that has never left me - a vision from the Lord which says, "Restore My Church!"